


if i had the time i'd stop the world and make you mine

by softirwin



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Declarations Of Love, HILARIOUS I CANT BELIEVE THATS A TAG, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Song: Wonderwall (Oasis), well its in there so i'm using it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26465503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softirwin/pseuds/softirwin
Summary: Calum had driven Luke away in the first two weeks of his obsession, and even Ashton’s patience had worn out around the month mark, so now Michael’s bearing the brunt of it all, groaning loudly whenever Calum saysso I heard this Oasis song-but not leaving the room, letting Calum speak and only punctuating it with exasperated sighs and rolled eyes andI don’t care, Cal,even as he slings an arm around Calum and pulls him in so Calum’s head rests on his shoulder. He puts up a good fight because he has to, because if Calum saw how willing he really was to let him talk about Oasis to his heart’s content just to see him smile he’d take full advantage of it, and because Michael would have to find a way to immediately erase any evidence of his existence if the extent of how desperately in love with Calum he is ever became public knowledge.-aka the worst 5+1 fic ever...malum + 5 oasis songs...and 1 noel song...don't ask me i don't know either
Relationships: Michael Clifford/Calum Hood
Comments: 7
Kudos: 37





	if i had the time i'd stop the world and make you mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yellingatbabylon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellingatbabylon/gifts).



> so i asked the light of my life sam hypothetically, what would you want in a birthday fic? and because she's possibly god incarnate she said britpop and cities. well my love i cannot say i delivered on all of that but i can give you a fic that ended up twice as long as i wanted it to be and channels our deep love for these certain songs and has a smidgen of city romanticisation thrown in too. i can't believe it's already your birthday this is so wild to me but i'm so fucking glad i met you i've said this at least fifty times but i'll keep saying it because it's true you were such an anchor in my quarantine just the both of us struggling to graduate in the circumstances together and i feel so lucky to get to spend time with you and your wonderful, kind, positive self there are so many things about you that i admire so deeply (mainly your burgeoning love for britpop <3) i wouldn't even know where to begin to tell you all the things i love about you ANYWAY long a/n aside i hope this fic can go a little way to make you smile i hope you're having the most wonderful birthday i adore you and i'm solemnly bestowing the honour (or maybe shame) of britpop monday upon you this week 
> 
> i also have to shoutout bella in this because how else would i put myself in the mindset of someone who doesn't care about oasis and gets exasperated at having to listen to it 
> 
> also! of course! follow me on [tumblr](http://calumcest.tumblr.com) :) xo

**1.**

It all starts in Berlin. 

Well, technically it probably starts in, like, 2006, probably in a servo in Sydney or something, but Berlin’s the place Michael can pinpoint it starting for good. 

They’re backstage, twenty minutes to go, and Ashton’s got his music blaring, because he’d insisted he’d got a _great_ pre-show playlist that he’d curated incredibly carefully and anyway, do you _really_ want Luke to be in charge of the music, at which point Michael had snapped his mouth shut and handed Ashton the speaker. It’s not exactly the best pre-show playlist he’s ever heard - that title definitely goes to Michael’s own, fuck what everyone else thinks, Smack That is the perfect pre-show song - but it’s doing the job, getting them all a little buzzed. Or, rather, it would be getting Michael a little buzzed if Ashton weren’t so absolutely out of his mind with that sort of crazed excitement he manages so well, which is making Luke laugh harder than Ashton’s stupid antics and jokes warrant. Michael wishes Calum were here, eyes searching for him despite knowing he’s off trying to find an emergency A-string to replace his second one that’s snapped today. He just needs someone who’ll send him looks and back him up against Ashton’s insanity; it’s nothing to do with the fact that Michael always feels a little off-kilter without Calum around. 

“Isn’t it time for your ice bath?” Michael interrupts, when Ashton emerges from behind the wall dividing one part of the dressing room from the other roaring the lyrics to Gold Digger, making Luke double over with laughter, and Ashton glances over at him, eyes glinting with that odd, almost-menacing hysteria he gets when Luke’s attention is on him. 

“Already had it,” he says, and Michael scowls. 

“Go have another one,” he says. “You look a little flushed.” Ashton just flips him off at that, and then launches into a loud and incredibly flawed rendition of the final verse of Gold Digger in the most exaggerated Australian accent he can manage, which makes Michael groan and press the heels of his palms into his eyes as Luke laughs delightedly from the sofa opposite him. 

“Shut the fuck _up,”_ he says, shouting to be heard over both Ashton and the music. He’s fairly sure pre-show warmups are supposed to make them feel good, pumped, inspired, get Luke ready to go and yell at the audience to put their hands in the air and get Michael ready to tell him to shut up, not get Luke laughing so hard he sort of sounds like he’s choking, nor get Michael wondering whether his guitar is heavy enough to kill a bandmate or two. He’s not a bad person, he thinks a little despairingly, pressing his face into his hands so hard he thinks his eyeballs might get dislodged. What the fuck has he done to deserve this? 

Fate seems to agree with him, though, because someone sticks their head around the open door and says _Ashton, can you come see whether the snare’s tight enough for you,_ and Ashton bounces out of the room, still yelling along to the music. Michael gets up after him just to slam the door shut a little ferociously, relishing the way it immediately cuts off the sound of Ashton’s voice, and then stomps back over to the sofa he’d been sat on, relief starting to lick at the edges of his irritation. 

“Stop encouraging him,” he tells Luke, who just shrugs, still smiling a little. 

“Take the stick out of your arse,” he says. 

“Take your tongue out of Ashton’s,” Michael retorts, and Luke pulls a face. 

“I’m not rimming Ashton,” he says, a little petulantly. Michael raises his eyebrows. 

“What else d’you call laughing at Ashton’s jokes?” he asks. “An act of charity?” 

“Having a sense of humour?” Luke shoots back.

Michael’s not even listening to the loud music anymore, too busy focusing on constructing his next incredibly witty one-liner, but just as he’s about to hit Luke with his carefully-designed comeback, the door slams open, revealing a frowning Calum. 

“Are you listening to fucking Wonderwall?” he says, and Michael stops, because he always does for Calum. 

“No,” he says. Calum narrows his eyes, cocks his head for a moment, and then points at the ceiling and raises his eyebrows. 

“That’s Wonderwall,” he says. 

“Might be, but I’m not listening to it,” Michael says. 

“Well, it’s playing, and you’re here,” Calum says, letting the door fall shut behind him as he steps into the room properly. 

“So?” Michael says, eyes trained on Calum as he swerves around the sofa Luke’s sat on and heads over towards Michael. “I’m busy.”

“With what?”

“Telling Luke to stop rimming Ashton,” Michael says, inclining a head in Luke’s direction. Calum pulls a face, and throws Luke a disapproving glance. 

“Don’t rim Ashton,” he says, and Michael sits back triumphantly and thinks _see? I needed you here._

“It’s not rimming if it’s genuine,” Luke counters. 

“I think that might actually be worse,” Michael says. “You _genuinely_ find Ashton funny?” 

“That _is_ troubling,” Calum agrees. Michael fucking loves him. 

“What, you think you’re funnier?” Luke says, pointing at each of them in turn. “When was the last time I laughed at one of your jokes?” 

“You laugh at my jokes all the time,” Michael says. 

“Go on, then,” Luke says, leaning back on the sofa and raising one eyebrow in a challenge. “When was the last time?” How the fuck is Michael supposed to remember that? 

“I don’t want you to laugh at my jokes if you think Ashton’s funny,” Michael says. 

“I laughed at one of your jokes a few hours ago,” Luke says. 

“Why’d you ask when the last time you laughed at one of my jokes was, then?” Michael says. “And why d’you remember that?” 

“I remember anomalies,” Luke says solemnly. 

“It’s a good song, actually,” Calum says suddenly. 

“What is?” 

“Wonderwall.” 

“Maybe the first three million times you hear it,” Michael says flippantly. “Gets a bit tired after that.” Calum hums. 

“Maybe it’s just because it reminds me of you,” he says, and then leans forward and picks up the beer Ashton had drunk about half of and then abandoned, leaving Michael blinking at his back, heart and stomach both leaping around his chest like it’s hosting the fucking Organ Olympics. 

What? Calum can’t mean that. At least, not like _that,_ surely; there’s got to be some other explanation. Maybe it reminds him of Michael because of the whole anyway-here’s-Wonderwall thing, since Michael’s a fairly mediocre guitarist. Yeah, it’ll be something like that, won’t it? Calum can’t mean _that_ with it, can’t mean what Noel Gallagher meant when he wrote the words. 

Yeah, Michael decides, shaking his head in an attempt to clear it a little. Calum probably doesn’t realise Wonderwall’s a love song, is all. 

\-------

**2.**

By the time they get to Paris two months later, Calum’s lost the fucking plot. 

It had started with Wonderwall, and then it had been some song about a woman called Sally, and then it had been something about feeling supersonic, and by the time they cross over into France, Michael thinks he’s heard every single song Noel Gallagher’s ever written. And it’s driving Michael up the fucking _wall._ Mainly because it makes Calum so fucking happy, because he’s so excited about the songs and the chord sequences and the stories behind the lyrics and _did you know Noel Gallagher once snorted coke off a toilet in 10 Downing Street reserved for the Queen,_ and because Michael’s so hopelessly in love with him, he can’t _really_ hate anything that makes Calum happy. 

(And, more annoyingly, because they really _are_ good.) 

Calum had driven Luke away in the first two weeks of his obsession, and even Ashton’s patience had worn out around the month mark, so now Michael’s bearing the brunt of it all, groaning loudly whenever Calum says _so I heard this Oasis song-_ but not leaving the room, letting Calum speak and only punctuating it with exasperated sighs and rolled eyes and _I don’t care, Cal,_ even as he slings an arm around Calum and pulls him in so Calum’s head rests on his shoulder. He puts up a good fight because he has to, because if Calum saw how willing he really was to let him talk about Oasis to his heart’s content just to see him smile he’d take full advantage of it, and because Michael would have to find a way to immediately erase any evidence of his existence if the extent of how desperately in love with Calum he is ever became public knowledge. 

It does make him relish his moments of peace, though. Like today, on the bus on a day off, when everyone goes out to explore the city and he can hole himself up in his bunk and just play League, doesn’t even need to bother finding out what city they’re in because it doesn’t matter. 

Until Calum pushes back the curtain of his bunk at two in the afternoon, an expectant look on his face, making Michael glare up at him. 

“What?” he says grumpily. 

“Come out with me.” 

“What for?” Calum blinks at him. 

“Because you love me?” Michael throws him a withering look. “Alright, because you want food.” 

Shit. Michael does want food. 

“You can get me food,” he points out. 

“I can,” Calum agrees. “But I won’t.” Bastard. 

“Fine,” Michael says, and lets out the most dramatic sigh he thinks he can get away with as a twenty-five-year-old, swinging his legs out of the bunk and not taking any care to make sure they don’t hit Calum. Calum jumps out of the way in time, though, and doesn’t say anything about it as Michael straightens and cracks his spine. “Where are we?” 

“Paris.” 

“Mm,” Michael says absent-mindedly, bending down to pull his suitcase out from under the bunks. “City of love.” 

“No different to any other city with you in it,” Calum says, and Michael stops short halfway through rooting through his clothes - he really should start buying clothes that aren’t black, if only to make it easier to tell whether it’s a pair of trousers or a shirt he’s just picked up - to stare up at him, trying to process what Calum’s just said. 

Does he mean that? He doesn’t look like he’s joking. Is he just making fun of Michael? Does he know about Michael’s- well, the whole being-hopelessly-in-love-with-his-best-friend thing? No, he wouldn’t do that if he did, Michael knows that. And he really _doesn’t_ look like he’s joking. But it’s not like he can mean _that,_ is it? So what _does_ he mean?

Whatever, Michael decides. It’s too early to decipher Calum Hood. 

“Shut up,” he says, and Calum just grins down at him as something unreadable flashes through his eyes, and then pushes at Michael’s back with his foot. 

“Hurry up,” he says, and Michael throws him a scowl as he flinches away. 

“I’m fucking trying,” he says, and Calum sighs, all long-suffering, and throws himself down on Ashton's bunk, fishing his phone out of his pocket. “And don’t touch my back with your feet.” 

“They’re clean,” Calum protests, but he’s looking at his phone, not at Michael, clearly not invested enough in the torture Michael’s facing at his hands. Or feet, rather. 

“I don’t care,” Michael says, pulling out the same black shirt for the third time. “They’re still disgusting.” 

“What’s wrong with my feet?” Calum sounds a little offended.

“It’s not _your_ feet, it’s the concept of feet,” Michael says, setting the black shirt aside as he picks it out a fourth time. “It’s what they represent.” Calum just hums thoughtfully, like he’s mulling Michael’s words over, letting the point sink in. 

“At least they’re not as bad as Ashton’s,” he says idly. Michael can’t disagree with him there. 

“That’s not saying much,” he says, because even though he can’t disagree with him, he can’t let him have the victory either. 

“Alright, at least they’re not as bad as yours,” Calum says, and Michael can hear the grin in his voice. He doesn’t even bother turning around, just holds a middle finger up at Calum, who laughs, and prods at his back with his foot again, making Michael squawk and jerk away. 

“Fuck _off,”_ he says. 

“C’ _mon,”_ Calum wheedles, as Michael frowns at a pair of trousers that he’s certain he wore at a show one night and hasn’t washed since. “I’m fucking starving.” 

“Go, then,” Michael says, but he picks out a random shirt that he’d dismissed at least twice already. “I’m not stopping you.” 

“Not without you,” Calum says, and Michael’s hand falters over a chain, fingers slipping as he tries to pick it up. Before Michael has the chance to string together a semi-coherent response, though, Calum’s continuing, sounding a little too gleeful: “I’ll motivate you.” Michael narrows his eyes. He doesn’t trust that tone of voice, nor Calum in general.

“How?” he asks suspiciously. There’s a brief moment of silence, and then a song starts up, tinny from the shitty quality of Calum’s phone speakers. Michael groans, because he knows what this is. Fucking, whatever it’s called, that Oasis song about _feel no shame, there’s no time for running away, hey now, hey now,_ whatever the fuck any of that means. It had been catchy, even bordering on enjoyable the first twenty times he’d heard it in the past week, but by the hundred-and-twentieth time Calum had really been pushing his fucking luck, even with Michael. 

“Not them again,” Michael says, speeding up his search for clothes, and Calum laughs, sounding far too pleased with himself. 

“They’re a good fucking band,” he says, which Michael can’t disagree with, but again, can’t let Calum have. 

“Good for making me feel better about our lyrics, yeah,” he says, rifling through his suitcase for a clean pair of socks. “I mean, fucking hell. What’s that one about dogs in the kitchen? Makes Just Saying sound like fucking Imagine.” 

“Some Might Say?” Calum phrases it as a question, like Michael’s going to be like _yeah, that’s the one,_ like he knows anything about Oasis at all. 

(He might. He might have cracked one night and listened to their first four albums, just because they’re important to Calum now, but Calum doesn’t need to know that.) 

“You fucking tell me,” Michael says, immediately regrets it as Liam Gallagher gets cut off right in the middle of a _hey now_ in favour of a guitar riff, and then the sound of sped-up music as Calum searches for the right bit. Michael groans, digging out a pair of socks and setting them on his bunk with the trousers and shirt he’d picked out. “I don’t want to fucking hear it, Cal.” 

“I know,” Calum says placidly. Michael hates him. He thinks he hates Liam Gallagher more, though, as he sings out something about the sink being full of fishes, she’s got dirty dishes on the brain, his dog’s been itching in the kitchen again. 

“Fucking hell,” he says, getting to his feet and snatching his clothes off the bed. “I’m not sticking around for this.” He wrenches the door to the back lounge open and slams it shut behind him, catching the faint sound of Calum’s amused laugh through the thin wooden door. 

(He tries not to think _well, as long as it made Calum happy._ He tries.)

\-------

**3.**

Sydney’s always a bittersweet place to be. 

It’s an odd mixture of familiar and foreign, of things Michael remembers and things that he doesn’t, something that feels like home on a visceral level but not on a superficial level. Or maybe feels like home on a superficial level but not on a visceral level, but Michael tries not to think about that too hard, because it makes his stomach turn. 

He can’t help thinking about it now, though, standing on Sydney Harbour Bridge gazing out at his city, Calum by his side. Or is it his city anymore? He’s not sure. It might not belong to him anymore, and he might not belong to it anymore, and that thought echoes around the hollows of his soul, digs into cavities he didn’t know he had and buries itself deep under his skin. Who is he, if not Michael from Sydney? Strip away all the other layers, all the superficialities of his career and his fame and his fortune, and what’s left, if he doesn’t even know where home is? 

The sun’s setting, lighting up the sky with a mix of blazing oranges and reds and pretty pinks and purples that shouldn’t work in tandem, but do. Michael’s seeing them in double, up in the sky and glittering on the water, broken up as the breeze creates tiny ripples on its surface. It’s sort of fitting, though, Michael thinks, as he casts his eyes back up at the sky, grand and bold and imposing, and yet beautiful and soft and comforting. Michael sort of feels like him and Calum are like this sky, sometimes. Calum, all striking streaks of fire and beauty, put together and sure about his place in the world, and Michael, reflecting what he can of Calum’s light, split apart and disorderly, doesn’t even know the basics like where the fuck home is, or whether he deserves to call anything home at all. 

It’s a thought that’s crossed his mind a few thousand times before, comes clad in different clothes every time, but Michael’s learnt to recognise its scent. _I’m not enough._ It’s nothing new, nothing that he’s not used to staring in the face of and maybe even rolling his eyes at, sighing and saying _not you again,_ but here, standing staring out at the city that used to house his soul but he now struggles to find a home in, it feels like the very first time he’d felt it all over again. Because if he’s not enough for a home, then what is he enough for? 

Calum, who’s standing next to him, pressed arm-to-arm, shifts slightly, turns to look at Michael like he can feel what’s going on in Michael’s mind. Maybe he can, Michael thinks, as he carries on staring out at the sun’s rays setting everything they touch alight for a moment. It’s difficult to keep secrets from the person who safeguards his soul. 

(In fact, so far he’s only successfully kept the one.) 

“You should listen to this,” Calum says, and his voice is quiet, gentle, almost stolen away by the breeze. Michael tears his gaze away from the building he’s been squinting at, blinks twice to try and get the remnants of light out from behind his eyelids, and looks down. Calum’s holding out an AirPod for him. It almost makes Michael laugh, the jarring juxtaposition between Calum, the boy who'd held his hand when he'd cried and his hair back after a night out and his heart in his hands as they grew up in this city together, and the stupid fucking AirPod, but he takes it nonetheless. 

“If this is fucking Oasis,” he says as he puts the AirPod in his ear, but his words have no heat to them. In fact, they come out a little feeble, and Calum glances at him, that well-known mixture of concern and shrewdness in his eyes as he takes in the tightness of Michael’s mouth, the tension of his brow, the heaviness of his eyes. 

“Just listen to it,” he says evenly, and presses play on his phone. 

It starts with a piano, and then a voice that Michael wishes he didn’t know well enough to recognise as Liam Gallagher telling him to _hold up, hold on, don’t be scared, you’ll never change what’s been and gone._ Then the drums come in as Liam says _may your smile_ _shine on, don’t be scared, your destiny may keep you warm,_ and the strings swell for the chorus, Liam gently telling him _all of the stars are fading away, just try not to worry, you’ll see them someday. Take what you need and be on your way and stop crying your heart out._

It’s oddly comforting, Michael thinks, as he stares out across the water. He _won’t_ ever change this. He’ll never be able to go back to Sydney being his home in the way it used to be, never be able to erase all the years that have built up between him and this city, but it’s okay. He might feel like this now, and it might scare him now, but it won’t always be like this. Liam’s sort of right; the stars might be fading, but he’ll see them again. Sydney might not be his home anymore, but he’ll find one somewhere. He won’t feel this way forever. 

It’s a pretty song, too, Michael thinks, a little softer than the things Calum’s been blaring out for the past few months. It settles him, grounds him, reminds him of that safe feeling he gets when Calum’s stroking his hair as he’s falling asleep on Calum’s chest, when he’s pressing soft kisses to Michael’s temple and murmuring quiet things that Michael’s too tired to take in. It feels, Michael realises with a jolt, like home. 

So maybe he doesn’t need a home in Sydney, he thinks, as Liam tells him that _we’re all of us stars._ Maybe that’s why Sydney doesn’t feel like home anymore. Maybe he’s got one in Calum instead.

\-------

**4.**

LA is a weird fucking city. 

Michael’s not fond of the way it makes him feel too big and too small at the same time, of the way it never _really_ gets dark, of the way it takes him three hours to drive somewhere that should take him thirty minutes, but it’s the place Calum calls home. Calum doesn’t like the city either, but he likes his house in the hills, likes to hang over his balcony and stare out at the scene in front of him in silence, one hand on a bottle and one hand on Michael’s waist. 

That’s what Michael’s expecting Calum had invited him over for, so when he can hear faint music coming from the house as soon as he gets out of his car he frowns, and he thinks _it better not be fucking Oasis_ as he slams the door as loudly as possible, trying to alert Calum to his arrival. The music doesn’t stop, though, so Michael just digs around in his pocket for the key Calum had given him to his house before he’d even got one himself, unlocks the front door, and lets himself in. 

Of course, it’s fucking Oasis. It’s that fucking half-hour long song - Champagne Supernova, he remembers, as Liam sings the words about five times in a row - the one that he’d found Calum lying on the tarmac of a car park staring up at the sky listening to, stoned out of his fucking mind. _You have to listen to it high, Mike,_ he’d said earnestly, sounding awed, and Michael had rolled his eyes and said _I don’t have to listen to it at all, thanks,_ even as he’d lay down next to Calum on the slightly damp ground and listened to the tinny echo of the music from Calum’s headphones mingling with Calum’s slow, even, contented breathing. 

“Cal!” he shouts, as Liam says something about walking slowly down a hall faster than a cannon ball - what the fuck are they ever on about, seriously - poking his head into the living room and the kitchen. 

“Here,” Calum shouts back, like they’re playing Marco fucking Polo. How the fuck is Michael supposed to know where ‘here’ is? 

“Where?” he calls. 

“Studio,” Calum yells, and Michael sighs, pulls his coat in closer to himself - he’s going to stream nothing but CALM until Calum can afford to install central heating in his studio, fucking hell - and heads for the little room at the back of the living room. 

The music gets louder as he gets closer, and when he opens the door and steps into the room, it swells around him, filling up every inch of the space between himself and Calum, who’s sprawled across the sofa, looking _very_ fucking high. 

“You’re high,” Michael tells him, heading for the sofa, and nudges at one of his thighs with his foot. Calum’s head rolls to the side to look at Michael, and he smiles lazily. 

“Thanks,” he says, but moves his leg to make room for Michael, who sits down heavily, shivering a little as he looks at Calum, who’s in nothing but a slightly-rumpled t-shirt and pyjama bottoms. It’s not because he looks effortlessly gorgeous like that, though, and definitely not because he might look like he’s just been fucked. Michael’s just an empathetic person, and Calum must be cold. 

“You must be cold,” he says, and Calum grins and shakes his head slowly. 

“Nah,” he says, and then tips his head back on the sofa, gaze still trained on Michael, a sudden hopefulness in the soft, hazy brown of his eyes. “But if I say I am, will you cuddle me?” 

“No,” Michael says, on principle. "You've got to earn that."

“How?” Michael shrugs. 

“Not my problem.” Calum sighs, but it’s curled around a smile, and it’s oddly fond and happy. 

They sit in silence for a while, nothing but the song between the two of them, instruments swelling as it gets to the middle and then petering out again to nothing but the guitar, the drums and Liam singing _how many special people change? How many lives are living strange? Where were you while we were getting high?_ Michael wonders whether maybe-

“You’ve gotta be high for this one,” Calum says, two steps ahead of Michael’s thoughts, even intoxicated. 

“I’m not high,” Michael points out. 

“You should be,” Calum says. Michael hums. 

“You got any left over?” he says, and Calum shakes his head. Michael shrugs, all _well, that’s that then,_ and hooks an arm around the back of the sofa.

“It’s a nice song,” he allows, because it is, and because Calum might not remember the concession in the morning. It’s easy to lose himself in it, in the ebb and flow of the instruments and Liam’s vocals, easy to let himself wash over the music rather than letting the music wash over him. 

“Yeah,” Calum says absent-mindedly, and then shifts suddenly, curls himself up into a ball onto the sofa and then twists around and lies down so his head is on Michael’s lap. Michael rolls his eyes at him, but one hand is already coming up to thread through Calum’s hair, and it had been the whole reason Michael had flung his arm around the back of the sofa, anyway; a silent invitation. “We should do one like this.” Michael snorts at that, but it’s fond, and he runs a thumb along what he can reach of Calum’s jawline.

“Oh yeah?” he says, raising his eyebrows. “Which of us d’you think is up for writing something like this?” Calum shrugs. 

“Take enough coke and any of us could do it,” he says, and Michael can’t help but laugh softly at that, scratching at Calum’s scalp. Calum hums, pushes into Michael’s hand as his eyes flutter shut, looking as content as Michael’s ever seen him, completely at ease at Michael's touch.

The song’s on loop, as Oasis songs so often fucking are if Calum can get his hands on them, but Michael doesn’t actually mind this time. It feels like a song that needs to be looped, feels like a song he needs to lose himself in for an hour or two. Maybe he _should_ listen to this high, he thinks, stroking a thumb across Calum’s cheekbone and relishing the way Calum’s face tilts into the touch. He sort of wants to know what Calum's getting out of it. 

Calum sighs when the song comes to an end again, lips curving up in a small smile. 

“I love this song,” he says happily, as it starts up again, and Michael can’t help but huff out a laugh. 

“I can tell,” Michael says, and the smile playing at Calum’s lips widens. 

“I love you, too,” Calum says, and Michael’s fingers freeze in Calum’s hair. 

He knows that. He knows Calum loves him. He’s not shy about saying it, declares it on stage and when Michael brings him a coffee and on late-night phone calls when they have to be apart, but he never says it like this. There’s always something specific behind it, showmanship or gratefulness or loneliness; it’s never like this, full of everything at once. Michael can’t pick out a single emotion in Calum’s voice, can’t pick out serenity or happiness or overwhelm or contentment, because it’s _all_ there, mixed together with even more things that Michael’s not sure he can even identify. He’s saying it with everything he has - everything he _is_ \- baring himself for Michael to see. 

Calum opens his eyes again, and Michael blinks down at him, green on brown. Eyes are the window to the soul, he’s heard, and right now all he can see in Calum’s is himself. 

“I know,” Michael says. That seems to be enough for Calum, whose eyes flutter shut again, and he turns his head a little, making Michael’s fingernails scrape against his scalp. It reminds Michael to move his hand again, to thread his fingers through the suspiciously-silky strands for someone who uses two-in-one shampoo and conditioner. 

The song weaves between the two of them, finds its way to settle in the little gaps and crevices and maybe even a little in Michael’s heart as he tries to come up with the words to tell Calum what he wants to say. It takes another one-and-a-half cyles of the song, another ten minutes or so of the swell and retreat of the instruments and Liam’s voice, of Michael’s fingers tangled in Calum’s curls, and then Michael realises that the words he wants are the words he already has. 

“I love you too, y’know." Calum smiles, but somehow, it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. 

“I know.” 

\-------

**5.**

Calum’s been excited for this for weeks. 

“Manchester,” he’s been saying. _“Manchester._ You know who’s from Manchester?” 

“Oasis,” the three of them will chorus, bored and uninterested. 

“Oasis,” Calum will say, like they haven’t spoken at all, sounding absolutely fucking exhilarated, and at least one of the rest of them will put their head in their hands as the other two sigh and groan. 

“The White Stripes are pretty good without a bassist, y’know,” Ashton says warningly, when Calum announces that he’s excited for the Manchester show for the hundredth time, hopping up and down in the corner of the dressing room. “Maybe we should take a leaf out of their book.” 

“Fuck off,” Calum says, and Ashton just grins at him, drumming idly on the table in front of them. “D’you think the crowd’ll sing Oasis? I’ve seen them do it at other gigs.” 

“No,” Michael says. “I won’t let them.” 

“What d’you mean, you won’t let them? What’re you going to do, knock the lot of them out with your guitar?” 

“Maybe,” Michael says, with a shrug. 

“I’ll help,” Ashton says, and Calum throws him a glare. 

“You know, you’re supposed to _support_ your best friends,” he says.

“I do support my best friends,” Ashton says pointedly, and Calum rolls his eyes. 

“Very funny,” he says sarcastically, and Ashton grins in a way that says _yeah, I am, aren’t I?_ Before he has the chance to retort, though, someone’s sticking their head around the door and saying _five minutes to stage,_ and Michael heaves himself to his feet, stretching out and trying to reach far enough to slap the back of Luke’s head, just because. Luke, though, ducks out of his way, batting his hand away, and files out of the room behind Ashton, leaving Michael to roll his eyes and follow a bouncing Calum out of the door. 

“Manchester,” Calum says happily, and Michael thinks _Jesus fucking Christ_ but can hear the way it’s dripping with fondness even in his own mind. 

“I’m going to have your microphone switched off tonight,” Michael says, as they round the corner to where their guitars are waiting for them. “I don’t trust you not to hijack the whole show.” 

“How the fuck are we going to do Babylon, then?” Calum says, pulling his bass over himself and plucking at a few strings. 

“We’ll skip it,” Michael says as he slips his own guitar over his head and strums a G. “Do five renditions of Jet Black Heart instead.” Calum snorts, shaking his head as he heads to where Ashton and Luke are already deep in conversation by the steps up to the stage. 

“Narcissist,” Calum tosses over his shoulder, and Michael grins. 

“Hard not to be, being me,” he says casually, and then tries not to think about the way his heart skips a beat as it does all too often around Calum when he catches the way Calum’s lips quirk upwards as he turns to face the stairs.

God, he thinks, jumping up and down on the spot a few times just to get rid of some nervous energy. He should probably see a cardiologist at some point, and send Calum the bill. 

\-------

The show’s going brilliantly until Luke asks for requests between the penultimate and final songs. 

_Oh, Jesus,_ Michael thinks, as the crowd scream and Calum’s eyes light up. 

“Wonderwall?” he suggests, leaning into his microphone with a grin and shooting Michael a gleeful glance, and the crowd scream again, somehow louder than before. “Or- or, no, wait- Don’t Look Back In Anger?” 

Michael doesn’t think he’s ever heard a crowd scream so loud in his life. 

“What the fuck is that?” Luke shouts to Michael, who sighs. 

“The one about Sally,” he yells back, and Luke frowns. 

“Who?”

“I don’t fucking know,” Michael shouts. “She has to wait, or something. I don’t know.” He does know. He’s listened to it enough times with Calum to know the strumming pattern and the lyrics, and he’s listened to it enough times on his own in the privacy of his bunk at three in the morning to know the chords. 

“I don’t know it well enough,” Luke says, and Calum looks over at him, and shrugs. 

“Give me an acoustic,” he calls. “I’ll do it.” Luke looks torn, looks like he’s about to argue and say _no, we’re supposed to do something as a whole band,_ but Michael can see the joy in Calum’s eyes, that unbridled, breathless excitement that makes Michael’s heart glow with love, and it makes him shake his head at Luke, makes him shout _I can play it, I’ll do it,_ and stride off to get an acoustic before Luke can ask _why the fuck can you play that?_ Even his roadie shoots him a weird look, but hands the guitar and a capo over and takes the guitar Michael gives him. 

He can feel Calum’s eyes on him as he heads back to his microphone, can feel that there’s something in his gaze, but stares steadfastly down at the guitar as he fiddles with the capo and strums experimentally, not wanting to have to face whatever’s making the air between the two of them so taut. He cycles through the chords quickly once while humming the melody quietly to himself just to make sure he’s definitely got it right - which is good, because it’s the first time he realises it’s an E7, not an E - and then allows himself to look over at Calum and nod. The lights have been brought down a little, so Michael can’t see exactly what’s in Calum’s eyes, but he’s grateful for it, because what he can see looks a little overwhelming. He looks somewhere between exhilarated and afraid, a little like he’d looked when they’d signed their first record deal, or when they’d played to their own crowd for the first time, or when he’d heard their album for the first time. 

Calum starts to sing, voice a little hesitant, like it always is when he’s singing something for the first time, but it doesn’t even fucking matter, because he’s pretty much drowned out by the crowd. It almost makes Michael’s fingers slip on the fretboard, because this entire crowd knows this fucking song, are all singing out _gonna start a revolution from my bed_ like it’s the song of the band they’d come to see, not the song of a long-defunct band that most of them won’t even remember firsthand. There’s an odd edge to it, too, something Michael can’t quite put his finger on that distinguishes it from the way they’ll shout out the All Time Low songs that play between the openers and 5SOS themselves. Maybe it’s Calum’s voice, low and sweet and lost in the crowd despite his microphone, just one of thousands, or maybe it’s Michael’s guitar, adding a bit of depth to the voices, but there’s something to it that makes Michael have to try and swallow down a lump in his throat. 

When they get to the chorus, Calum steps away from the microphone, and Michael has a brief moment of thinking _is that it, are we cutting it short,_ but Calum’s still staring out at the crowd, and so Michael keeps playing, following Calum’s lead. 

_So, Sally can wait,_ they all sing, louder and more uproarious than anything they’ve sung so far, and it finally hits. It’s not just a song, not to any of them, to the people in the crowd nor to Calum. It’s- well, Michael doesn’t know exactly what it is, because it’s not that to him, but it’s something. It’s something that’s making the entire crowd sing, that’s making a few of the people he can make out sway in unison, arms around each other, but, more importantly, that’s making Calum’s eyes soft and bright and full to the brim with something Michael’s seen before, but only ever-

Oh. 

Only ever with Michael. 

Only ever when Michael’s holding his hand, stroking his thumb across Calum’s, or when he’s got his head in Calum’s lap and is smiling up at him, or when Calum’s got his head on Michael’s chest and is blinking at him as he tells a story, fingers twisted in Michael’s shirt. Only ever when he looks at Michael, when he glances at him across the stage, when their eyes meet in a room full of people, when Michael goes outside to find him smoking when he’s not caught a glimpse of dark brown hair and tattooed arms in more than five minutes.

He’s not really sure what to make of that, he finds, blinking at Calum long after Calum’s torn his gaze away to look back out at the crowd as he’s singing the rest of the second verse and pre-chorus. He doesn’t know what it means. It means _something,_ he’s certain of that, but _what?_

_Don’t look back in anger, I heard you say,_ the crowd sing, because even though Michael would love to stop the world turning so he can have a moment to process his thoughts it doesn’t work that way, and it feels like he’s privy to something, but he doesn’t know what. He feels like he’s seeing everything through a veil, hearing everything through a wall, like he can make out what’s going on but not why. He feels like he’s in an eternity of silence while the rest of the room is shouting and singing and crying, and then Calum turns to him again, lit up by a spotlight. He looks fucking ethereal, Michael thinks a little dazedly; looks like he has a halo, or maybe a ring of fire in his hair, skin soft in the warm light, brown eyes almost amber. 

“So, Sally can wait,” he sings, staring directly at Michael, and Michael can see it now, can see his eyes in the sweeping stage lights. 

Peace. 

He’s at peace. Something about this, about him singing someone else’s song with the crowd with Michael accompanying them, is making him feel the same way Michael does. And Michael gets it, he does - he knows how a crowd singing songs back to him makes him feel, knows how overwhelming it is, knows that it makes him so fit to burst with love that all he wants to do is find Calum’s eyes across the stage - but he doesn’t get _this._ He doesn’t get why it feels like whatever he feels with Michael, or why he feels peace with Michael at all, and why it’s usually only ever when they’re alone, nobody else around them. 

He doesn’t have the time to think about it, though, because the crowd’s erupting into a cacophony of cheers and applause and screams, and Calum’s stepping back from the microphone, grinning at Michael with something shining in his eyes that Michael can’t quite make out over the distance between them.

And then Calum strides over, looking like he’s on cloud fucking nine, or maybe ten, eleven, twelve, and he brings his hand up to cup Michael’s jaw, and he leans in. 

“Thank you,” he says, right in Michael’s ear, sounding breathless and overjoyed. "I love you, y'know that? Love you so much. More than you fucking know, Michael. More than I should." And then he presses his lips to Michael’s cheek, lingering a moment too long to be decent in front of the crowd, before pulling back. 

Michael blinks at him as he takes a step back, eyes locked on Calum’s, the soft brown lit up by the stage lights and something that makes Michael's breath hitch as it tries to make its way out of his lungs.

He looks...well. If Michael didn’t know any better, he’d say he looks like he’s in love. 

\-------

**+1**

The next show after Manchester is London. 

Michael loves London. He loves the hustle and bustle, loves that it’s full of the jarring juxtaposition of old and new, loves that nobody spares him a second glance or thought half the time. It’s overwhelmingly big - _twice the population of LA,_ as Ashton always grumbles, but Michael sort of likes that. He likes feeling small, for once. 

He hasn’t had a chance to speak to Calum yet, but he’s kind of glad. He’s not entirely sure what he wants to say - _what was that about, then?_ seems a bit insensitive- and the fact that Ashton herded them straight off stage to a club and then their manager herded them straight from the club onto the bus had meant he hasn’t had an opportunity to think about it at all. 

His opportunity comes, though, when Ashton and Luke decide they want to go shopping, and Calum decides he wants to go sit on the top of some hill he’s heard has a great view of London _to think off my hangover,_ and everyone rounds on Michael expectantly, waiting for him to make his choice. And Michael’s never reacted well under pressure, so he panics, and says: “Uh, Calum. I’ll do whatever Calum’s doing.” Ashton and Luke shrug, like they hadn’t been expecting anything different, but Calum looks a little taken aback, like he hadn’t thought Michael would want to go and sit on a hill and think with him. Which, really, sounds incredibly unappealing the more Michael thinks about it, but that might just be the prospect of having to bring up whatever the fuck last night was to Calum. 

This hill isn’t too far away, about fifteen minutes on the tube and then a train to a green, leafy suburb, and the little coil his stomach has wound itself into at the idea of having to spend time alone with Calum after the look of surprise on Calum’s face is loosened a little at the easy conversation they have on the way, laughing and joking like whatever happened last night hadn’t actually happened at all. It makes Michael feel better, more stable, centred and grounded, the concrete reminder that they’re always going to be okay, that things between them don’t change for anything. They’re Michael and Calum, and they always have been and they always will be, whatever form it takes.

Michael’s so absorbed in his easy conversation with Calum that he forgets that in order to sit on top of a hill, they’re going to have to climb said hill, and it takes a solid twenty minutes of panting and struggling and swearing at Calum for them to reach the top. Michael refuses to walk any further than that, just plonks himself down on the grass where they’re standing and leans back on his elbows, trying to catch his breath as he stares out at the city and as Calum tuts and rolls his eyes but sits down next to him, drawing his knees close to his chest. 

It is pretty, Michael thinks, as his breathing starts to even out again. It’s an odd thing to find pretty, maybe, a sprawling mass of concrete and glass and brick, but it is. It looks strangely still, like there aren’t eight million people living in front of him, and that thought itself takes Michael’s breath away as he stares out at the glass buildings glinting in the sunlight. He’s watching millions of people’s lives, all at once, and some of them might even be watching his, too. It’s a comfortable anonymity; his whole life is so public, so open, every move he makes watched and criticised, but Michael doesn’t think he’d like to be _really_ anonymous, either, wouldn’t like to be ignored completely. This is a happy medium, a breath of fresh air from his life, a moment of stillness in the chaos that characterises the rest of his days, alone with nobody but Calum and a few million other people who neither know nor care about who or what he is. This is all he needs, really, he thinks, blinking out at the horizon, at the boats ferrying people from one place to another, at the red buses he can see in the distance, at the huge, towering skyscrapers reflecting the glaring sunlight and making him squint. Just Calum, and a moment of quiet. 

“Have you ever listened to Noel’s solo music?” Calum asks suddenly, and Michael groans. Apparently, Calum _and_ a moment of quiet is too much to ask for. 

“Not unless you’ve subjected me to it,” he says. 

“I don’t think I have,” Calum says, diplomatically electing to ignore how Michael phrased his answer. 

“Then I haven’t.” There’s a pause. 

“Can I play you a song?” The _no, I don’t ever want to hear anything Noel Gallagher’s produced ever again, I swear to God, if I ever meet the man he’s going to have a lot to answer for_ is ready to fall from his tongue before his mind has processed the tone of Calum’s voice, but it screeches to a halt as he registers the hesitancy, the quietness, the sincerity of it. He turns, looks at Calum, who’s gazing at him impassively, and blinks. 

“If you want,” he says slowly. Calum lifts his hips off the ground, digging in his pockets for his AirPods - not the same ones from Sydney, Michael notes, because he’d lost those in Dublin - and hands them over to Michael, fumbling with his phone as Michael puts them in his ears. 

“Just- listen to the lyrics, yeah? For me." Calum says sounds a little nervous, and Michael frowns. 

“The lyrics,” he echoes, trying to figure out what’s going on. “I- alright. Sure.” Calum nods once, and then presses play, and a guitar and tambourine start up in Michael’s ears. 

The first lyrics don’t really make any sense to Michael. _Love would burn this city down for you?_ He’s got no fucking idea what Noel means with that, but he doesn’t really expect any better from the man. The next line, though, makes him start a little, because Noel sings _if I had the time I’d stop the world and make you mine and every day would stay the same with you._ It makes Michael shoot a glance over at Calum, but Calum’s staring steadfastly out at the city in front of them, now, blinking into the distance, eyes following a boat as it glides along the river.

 _I’ll be by your side when they come to say goodbye and we will live to fight another day,_ Noel sings, and Michael barely has time to think _Jesus, what?_ before he’s singing _my eyes have always followed you around the room ‘cause you’re the only God that I will ever need,_ and Michael’s heart stops. 

Is this- is Calum...is Calum trying to tell him something? 

Surely not, Michael thinks, even as Noel sings _my eyes have followed you around the room_ again. Surely- Calum can’t be saying _that,_ can he? Maybe he just thinks the lyrics are pretty. 

_But,_ a little voice in his head says, _remember last night? He said_ _he loved you more than you know, more than he should._ _And he asked you to listen to the lyrics_ for him. 

Well, _yeah,_ but- it can’t be _that,_ can it? Calum can’t be sending a message like this. And, honestly, if he is, Michael’s going to kill him for declaring whatever this is through _Noel Gallagher._

 _Let me fly you to the moon,_ Noel sings, and Michael feels his arm tingle as he whips around to stare at Calum again. Calum’s cheeks are a little pink, and his shoulders are a little tense, and Michael keeps staring as Noel repeats _my eyes have always followed you around the room ‘cause you're the only God that I will ever need._

The song fades out with a repetition of the first verse - a seriously questionable way to structure a song, really, verse-chorus-chorus-chorus-verse - and Michael’s so busy staring at Calum and trying to sift through his own thoughts to find one that’s moderately coherent that he barely even realises another song’s started playing until he hears _I seem to spend my whole life running from people who will be the death of you and me._ He wrenches the AirPods out of his ears, then, and holds them loosely in the palm of his hand, like they’re the only thing tying him and Calum together. 

“Cal,” he says, and that finally, _finally_ makes Calum tear his gaze away from the fucking boats on the Thames and look at his best friend again. 

“You know I’m not good with words, and I’ve been trying to tell you for a while,” Calum starts, like he’s prepared something to say and steeled himself to say it, and Michael shakes his head. 

“Is this- is that- d’you-” he’s not particularly good with words either, frustratingly; they make a fucking pair “-I mean, is that song, like, how you...how you feel?” He pretty much whispers the last word, can’t really bring himself to get it out in case he’s misinterpreted the entire situation, and the split second that Calum stares back at him feels as long as the past eighteen years of his life with him have done. 

Then, slowly, Calum nods. Just once, a little up-down of his head, a tiny motion that makes Michael’s entire worldview shift three inches to the right. 

Oh. 

_Oh._

“Oh,” he says. “I- oh.” 

“Yeah,” Calum says, and he _definitely_ sounds nervous now. “I- look. I just- I had to tell you. After last night. I know- I know I shouldn’t, and it’s- y’know, you don’t have to, like. But I do.” He’s making no sense, rambling and stuttering at the same time, but Michael understands him anyway. 

“You...you think that? About me?” Michael’s just got to be sure before he starts baring his own soul. What if he’s hugely misinterpreted the situation? There’s only so much he can say and take back. _Ha ha, sorry, kidding about the whole being-in-love-with-you thing_ doesn’t really work, and Michael’s not really in the mood to go into witness protection to escape the embarrassment of being rejected by his best friend. 

“Yeah.” Michael watches the muscles in Calum’s jaw clench and unclench. 

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. I, uh. Well. Same?” Calum blinks. 

“Same?” he echoes, and Michael shrugs, a little uncomfortably. 

“I mean, like,” he says, and throws one hand up in a gesture, which unbalances him from where he’s propped himself up on his elbows, meaning he has to slam it back down onto the ground inelegantly to stop himself toppling over in the middle of this conversation. Christ. “I, uh. I feel the same.” 

“You do?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I- yeah.” Calum blinks at him again. Once, twice, three times. Another time. One more, just for good measure, maybe. Again. Okay, it’s a bit unnerving now. Maybe Michael should speak to fill the silence. “I- well. I love you, right?” 

“Yeah,” Calum says. “Yeah, I know that.”

“Okay,” Michael says. “Well- okay. If you know that, then. Good?” 

“I mean,” Calum says hurriedly, like he’s correcting himself, “I love you too, y’know.” 

“Well, yeah,” Michael says, a little nonplussed. Isn’t that what they’re talking about here? Maybe he should make sure. “Like, we’re in love, right?” 

“I- uh. I mean. I guess?” Michael’s stomach flips uncomfortably.

“Oh,” Michael says, and can’t help the unhappiness that finds its way into his tone. “You guess?”

“I mean, _I’m_ in love, yeah, but I can’t- y’know. You know how you feel.” 

That’s it. Three words that should flip Michael’s world upside down, but don’t. Three words that should make him panic, probably, should make him think _what the fuck is this going to do to the band, to my career, to my friends, to my life,_ but don’t. Instead, it feels like a strange inevitability. It feels like- oh. But it doesn’t feel like _oh._ It just sort of settles in Michael’s bones, hums in his veins, knocks politely at his mind, but it doesn’t feel like a stranger.

And it makes sense, really, when Michael thinks about it, when he blinks back up at Calum, half-hidden in the shadow of a passing cloud. He can almost see the invisible threads tying the two of them together, can almost see them shimmering amongst the visible fibres of _bandmates_ and _best friends_ that bind the two of them to each other, and thinks _of course._ It’s the dark matter that makes up the two of them; it has to exist, for them to live in the way they do, and Michael’s just discovered the formula to find it. 

“Oh,” he says, when he remembers to speak. “You are?” Then he remembers that he should probably tell Calum that he’s also in love with him, so he hastily adds: “I mean, I’m in love with you. Obviously.” 

“Obviously?” Calum echoes. 

“Well, yeah,” Michael says, swallowing, and trying to even out his breathing without being too obvious about it. Jesus; he hopes they’re near a hospital. “I mean. Yeah. Look at you. It’s kind of- kind of hard not to be.” Calum blinks, and then looks down at himself, like Michael had meant that literally. Well, he doesn’t _not_ mean it literally, because Calum _is_ really fucking hot, but even Michael’s not that superficial. 

“Are you sure?” Calum says, and Michael stares at him. What sort of a fucking question is that?

“What?” he says. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Okay,” Calum says slowly, like he’s trying to process the information, like he had expected Michael to say something like _cheers, mate, but no thanks._ “So we’re in love?”

“Seems like it.” Calum swallows, and nods. 

“That’s good,” he says, like he’s trying for conversational, like Michael’s world isn’t shifting left and right and up and down right here on some random hill in London, trying to find its new axis. “We should- we should talk about it, though. Like. What that means.” 

“Okay,” Michael agrees. “Now?” Calum hesitates, and then shakes his head. 

“No,” he says. “I- not now.” Michael’s glad. He’s not sure he wants to hash out _how are we going to make this work, what are the boundaries going to be, where do we go from here_ right this moment; he’s got other things he’d rather do. Kiss Calum, maybe, if Calum will let him. 

“Okay,” Michael says again. “Later, then.” He clears his throat, and then adds: “Can I kiss you?” 

“Yeah,” Calum says, and it comes out in a rush, like he’s been waiting for Michael to ask, or trying to build up the courage to ask himself. “God, yeah.” It makes Michael smile, the relief that floods Calum’s voice, and Calum smiles back, eyes crinkling around the corners, and Michael thinks _oh, fuck_ as his heart skips at least fourteen beats when Calum tilts his head automatically, like he’s not even thinking about it, as Michael brings a hand up to his jaw. The smile is still playing at his lips, small and yet the brightest thing Michael thinks he might have ever seen - except the way the sun is reflecting off that building, Jesus, he’s going to need to go to the optician's after that - and Michael almost doesn’t want to kiss him, almost just wants to stay a few inches apart so he can watch Calum smile and know that it’s because of him, see the way his eyes are blazing with something so dazzling it almost takes Michael’s breath away. He doesn’t stop, though, because he’s been thinking about kissing Calum for far too many years for it to be acceptable at this point, keeps leaning in until their lips are touching, and then presses forward a little more, kissing Calum properly. 

Calum’s soft against him, pliant under him, brings a hand up to the nape of Michael’s neck and strokes through the hair there in the way that he knows Michael likes, and Michael exhales contentedly, tilts his head a little more so he’s got a better angle for kissing Calum with the right kind of pressure, soft but firm, taking what he already knows Calum’s willing to give. Calum goes willingly, lets Michael have what he wants and kisses back, and Michael can still feel the little smile on his lips as he strokes his thumb across Calum’s jaw, feels an answering smile curving his own lips upwards too. 

It’s not long, just a few seconds, because Michael’s not sure he wants it to be _that,_ just yet, but when he pulls back Calum lets his hand fall from the nape of Michael’s neck to rest on his chest instead, fingers right above Michael’s heart. It’s beating steadily, thumping like it’s trying to get out of Michael’s chest and reach Calum’s fingertips. It might be, actually. Michael had never paid much attention in biology, so he’s not sure whether the physical effects of being hopelessly in love with your best friend were ever covered. 

“That was nice,” Calum says after a moment, and Michael can’t help but laugh. Fucking hell. Things like this are never in romance movies, are they? There’s always a smooth one-liner, a dramatic declaration of love - possibly in the rain - there are never any inane comments; everything has its place. It makes Michael’s heart glow, though, because it’s so _them,_ the stupid blurted comments that haven’t been thought through, the sort of business-like transaction of realising they’re in love. It’s the exact same as it’s always been; they don’t need the one-liners or the rain, because nothing’s changed, and Michael doesn’t want it to. He wants the two of them to stay the same. 

Although, y’know, there’s always room for improvement, Michael thinks, the AirPods weighing down the hand that isn’t at Calum’s jaw. He could do with Calum’s little fucking Britpop phase ending. He’d be hard-pressed to come up with a less romantic way to be told _I’m in love with you._

“I can’t believe you used a _Noel Gallagher song_ to tell me you’re in love with me,” he says, and Calum laughs at that, quiet but delighted. 

“It was so fitting,” he says. “Even had your tattoo in it.” 

“I’m getting that covered up now,” Michael mutters, and Calum laughs again, and flattens his palm against Michael’s heart, feeling it jumping underneath his fingers. He rests it there a few moments, and then raises an eyebrow at Michael with a satisfied smile. 

“Not fooling anyone,” he says, and Michael rolls his eyes, and bats Calum’s hand away. 

“Fuck off,” he grumbles. “It’s the adrenaline.” Calum’s smile turns into a grin.

“Listening to Noel will do that,” he agrees, and Michael sighs, loud and exasperated, making Calum’s eyes twinkle. 

“I’m going to ban Noel Gallagher from making any more music if it’s the last thing I do,” Michael declares, and Calum laughs, soft and sweet. 

“At least I’ll still have all the songs that remind me of you,” he says. “Why d’you think I love Oasis so much?” 

Jesus Christ. Maybe those romance-movie-smooth-one-liners can be a part of them, after all. And maybe he really doesn't mind. 

But he can’t let Calum know that, so instead, he scoffs, and says: “Shut the fuck up,” and then immediately decides that Calum can’t be trusted to do that, so takes matters into his own hands, leaning in and kissing Calum again. 

(And maybe the words _if I had the time I’d stop the world and make you mine_ are bouncing around in his mind as Calum smiles against his lips, but Calum doesn’t need to know that either.) 


End file.
